2. Batter: In a large bowl with mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and vanilla 2 minutes until creamy. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, until blended. Stir buttermilk, food color and vinegar in a 2-cup measure until well blended. With mixer on low speed, beat in flour in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk mixture in 2 additions, beating just until blended. Spoon a scant 1⁄4 cup batter over candy in each cup, keeping candy in center.

3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in center of cupcakes comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes, then remove from pan to rack. Cool completely.

It turned out I didn't actually have two tablespoons of red food coloring in the house...those little bottles deceived me, and I had about half of that. Here's the batter, though, looking suitably red:

Kisses in the cupcake wrappers, ready to have batter added:

I baked the cupcakes for a full 25 minutes, which is pretty typical for my oven. It always needs the upper end of a cooking time range. Even baked, the red color is very prominent. A deep red, to be sure, but definitely not the reddish-brown some people were getting. Maybe less cocoa is used in this recipe?

I actually used my mother's cream cheese frosting recipe, which differs from the one that came with the cupcake recipe. It has a lot less butter and a bit less sugar. This is a very dense frosting which essentially tastes like a slice of cheesecake on top of your cake. Yum!

Just, blend. That's all there is to it. I used an electric mixer to get it nice and smooth, though I think Mom always did it by hand.

Mostly, I'm very happy with these. The cupcakes themselves came out very tasty and rich, and of course I already knew I loved the frosting. My only quibble? That Hershey's Kiss in the center! Not nearly the greatness I had hoped for. The kisses stay hard, and you can't really take a bite of cupcake-and-kiss. Especially once they've been in the fridge, which is a necessity with cream cheese frosting. After the first one, I just started popping the kiss out the bottom first thing, eating it, and then eating the rest of the cupcake. Next time, I'll skip this bit.

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Have the Cake

Welcome to Have the Cake. We are a group of bakers from around the world.

Every month we pick one recipe for a cake, cookie, cracker, pie, bar, biscuit or brownie. Everyone can make it as is or put their own spin on it. You have the whole month to complete it and when you are done, post your baking experience on your blog and right here! Welcome and let's get baking!

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